01.03.2010 11:20
FCB Foundation in Mali
www.fcbarcelona.cat
The FC Barcelona Foundation has held a sports training programme in Mali with the main aim of promoting the equality of the sexes through sport.
The FC Barcelona Foundation held the Sports Solidarity Conference (SSC) from 22nd to 26th February
in Bamako, the capital of Mali. This is the first time the initiative has been tried in Mali and
only the third in Africa since 2006, following on from Morocco and Senegal. The SSC is a programme
for the training of sports instructors in order to enable them to use sport as a vehicle for
education and social coexistence.
53 teachers and instructors
The theory classes were held in the classrooms of the XICS centre in Bamako, and
were given by former Barça defender Julio Alberto Moreno, Cati Gómez from the University of Vic and
sports instructor Hervé Blanchard. The course was attended by 53 people, most of them teachers or
instructors from the XICS centre, the local schools in the Téléphone Sans Fils district –one
of the poorest in the city – and the Salesian Père Michel centre, with which the Foundation
cooperates. There were also two teachers from each of the XICS centres in Morocco and Burkina Faso.
120 children aged 8 to 16
The practical sessions were held on the pitches of the Père Michel centre and were enjoyed by
120 children (60 boys and 60 girls). The main objectives of the programme are the teaching of
training methods, the equality of the sexes in sport in Africa, where girls are often excluded from
sports by cultural attitudes, and the forging of closer links between the local schools and the
Foundation’s XICS centre.